


A second Chance at Life

by Verona_mira



Category: Cinderella Phenomenon (Visual Novel), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Lucette is Tony, Mythros is Loki, Post-Canon-CP, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:48:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21609343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verona_mira/pseuds/Verona_mira
Summary: Inventor Anthonia Stark remembers being a princess, later queen and wife.Prince Loki remembers being an andvisor, later consort and husband.The universe changes around them.
Relationships: Loki/Tony, Lucette Riella Britton/Mythros
Comments: 7
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An AU of my current favorite fandom Cinderella Phenomenon. A bit to the shorter side and not at all in the style of Bloodlines, but I still hope, you all like it.
> 
> Have fun reading.^^

Lucette's mind comes back to her, thoughts racing a thousand miles an hour. There are confusing sensations, noises, lights flickering past.

There are voices she can't place, words she can't understand, blurs, she tries to reach out for.

Warmth came and left, always accompanied by the same voice and unchanged smell.

Being reborn was disconcerting, she decided, when her mind finally worked out what had happened, but it didn't need to be a bad thing.

She would mourn her father and the mother figure she had gained when she had almost been an adult, but having at least one genuinely caring parent from the beginning was nice. A precious thing she would keep close as long as she could.

* * *

She took it back. Her parents were pathetic. Pathetic excuses of human beings. They had _decided_ to have a child. Decided to bring her into this world.

If they had wanted to have a son so much, they should have checked her gender early into the pregnancy.

As it was she was settled with a mother being uninterested in even talking to her -worse than her father had ever been- and a worm of a man, who seemed unable to get into his head that no amount of money or alcohol would make her go away.

But Jarvis is all she had ever wanted as father when she had been small and it is easy to lodge him into the position in her mind.

He gets the designation Daddy. Father is for the man emotionally distant to her, to be able to at least see her day by day. Who decided to submit to her mother to keep something hoping to be able to save anything in the long run.

She doesn't need another mother. Jarvis wife is nice, but she isn't working at the manor, not much interacting with her. Lucette remembers Delora thought and how she slowly grew to love the woman like a mother.

It's enough. 

She'll make it be enough.

* * *

Thinking is much easier and faster than Lucette now named Anthonia Stark remembers. Her mind is sharp, easily grasping things and lodging the information into her ever growing understanding of the world.

She can hazily remember another time when it was so easy. More than a lifetime ago, before her mother started playing with her memories. Back then she thought there had only been so much her head could take as new information hadn't found a home in her head anymore. Nowadays she isn't so sure.

She wonders if the spells did more.

The thoughts slip away from her as she ignores the angry shouts of Howard and the cold indifference of Maria.

Daddy cares and that is all that matters, even as she can only call him that in her mind and only rarely to never risk a slip-up.

The circuit board she carefully puts together like a puzzle unfolding before her, piece by piece until the picture is complete, ends up beautiful in her eyes.

She quickly learns that there is barely any space for herself and her own thoughts though, despite being 'gifted' like that as Stane tells her as he stumbles over her, as she tries to hook it up to a lamp to make it blink the names precious to her in Morse code.

The names are important and she is scared of losing them. Jarvis holds her after Howard backhanded her when she tried to show him the electronic puzzle on Stane's insistence.

Any kind of hope and want for affection from that man dies when she is four and it drives her even further towards Jarvis, who gives her a cooling pack and helps her put together a new one with the first one broken at the base of the wall it was thrown to, pieces laying among shards in a puddle of alcohol.

* * *

Peggy Carter is introduced to her as godmother and she finds herself liking the woman, who knows how to fight, how the world works, how to stay hidden and strike from the shadows.

Playing the right game is important, vital. A protection she can't forsake. Just as she can't keep herself from learning the skills she may need if she fails at these games.

She can only pray, she'll never need them.

* * *

Time flies and Anthonia grows, foreign name still strange in her ears.

School passes by and she doesn't bother with insecure idiots who can't be mature, despite being years older.

Maybe she is spiteful and petty. But it is only her, she is the only one like that and her being there doesn't make them less.

Teenagers don't understand though and she grows unwilling to be the 'better person' and let them in when they come crawling for favors. She can't afford being soft, being nice, being trusting to a bunch of opportunistic turncoats.

School ends, MIT starts and people stay the same. She doesn't go to parties, but doesn't leave her suit either, she stays in close to campus.

Not being seen anywhere else during these parties lets rumours rise just as easily.

Whispers twist the stories even further and tabloids write what they think will get them the most money.

Instead of furiously denying anything, she sends them all a message, reminding them that she is a minor and what they are doing is unacceptable.

It won't stop whispers. Howard isn't a help, doesn't care. She hadn't talked to Maria since moving out to study. Jarvis calls and she calls him back, says his name on the phone like she would say daddy, full of adoration for him, but knowing she can't ever say it.

There is no one to care for outside him.

No one bothered to listen to her, instead of whispers and rumours and headlines and posts on social media.

Until there is.

* * *

James Rhodes comes into her life, fists swinging at a boy not knowing the meaning of the word 'no'.

The boy tries to say that she had started it, wanted it, just like at the party they were together. Her fault for strutting around like a whore at all these occasions.

At that point she had long started cursing public opinion. Instead she lets them check the phone connection, proving that she was home at the party they supposedly got to know each other. Speaking with Jarvis was her light in the dark. Now it saved her again.

Just to make sure they check the venue entrance, going through the recordings person by person until it is a proven thing that she hadn't been there at all.

The student gets a criminal record and gets buried under the attention. He is off age and fair game and Toni -as she calls herself now, one thing less given to her by Howard- has no inclination to protect him.

The students having tried to spread false information about her during the investigation are also known as liars. She takes quite some pleasure adding that tidbit to their social media pages and let the world chew on them.

* * *

James quickly gains the name Rhodey and for the first time she thinks she found someone to connect with.

He is nice to her. But not like someone wanting to be her boyfriend. He doesn't flirt, doesn't drift away at noticing how her lifestyle is not the party life the public made out of it.

His behaviour is a painful reminder of Fritz. Rhodey is darker skinned, darker eyed, but they both have the same kindness, the same protective streak and for the first time she dares to hope that there are more people she could care for than just Jarvis and Peggy.

Others to share her ever running thoughts with, that are not offended how she randomly grabs paper and starts scribbling stuff down. Doesn't care that her projects are not what _they_ want.

She hopes and dreams and remembers an inn with so many people all being different and still being at home there. Still ending up being hers, in all the ways she cared for.

When she awakes there is salt stuck to her face and pain in her chest.

* * *

Sometimes she wonders, if the memory spells hadn't crippled her hadn't slowed her mind down, would she still had been able to fit -cold and unloved as she had been- into Angielle and the palace life?

Would she have developed the same thirst for knowledge and learning she had now? Would she able to build? Allowed to?

Her life hadn't been bad in the end, but she had never left the role of a princess assigned to her by birth.

She was so different now. Still the same.

But would anyone still recognize her?

The thought scared her. Scared her more than noting how her hair and eyes were brown and no longer her own.

Her reflection seemed foreign to her, colours all wrong. But that was herself now and she couldn't cling to the past. And questioning what-ifs wasn't going to change anything either.

She was someone else now. But that didn't make it hurt less.

* * *

The planet kept turning, time kept passing and then she was graduating at 17 and nothing seemed to change.

Howard was still an alcoholic asshole, Maria was still indifferent and the world was a big unknown to her.

She wished to see it all.

Unwilling to live in Hotels and putting herself up for more whispers and rumours and Howards ability to simply call upon her whenever he felt like it, she bought a luxurious mobile home and went onto the move.

It had been adapted to her wishes, exchanging the big bed for a smaller one and a workstation with computer.

Toni still loves building, but without a proper workshop she doesn't have many chances to. She doesn't dare to settle down somewhere, to have a stable base of operations, so to speak.

Maria had given her dossiers of companies and the families leading them. Every single one of them had one or more men around her age.

She couldn't risk being trapped like that, not when she remembered, how it _could_ be, with warm hugs and feeling safe and curling up against someone she could trust with her life, who knew that dying for her was the very last resort and an action she would never forgive.

Thoughts about men to share her life with were always accompanied by pain.

She dearly missed her husband.

* * *

The travels were freeing like she hadn't expected. She called Jarvis and Rhodey and even visited the later.

The only real attention grabbing thing about her was the trailer and without being bound to the campus, keeping her head down and looking painfully ordinary despite the designer clothing and boots the tabloids were unable to find her from one day to the next.

All the lies came back to bite them, as they went to parties trying to find her, for the next scandal to pin to her, to get more juicy information on her.

The wide public seemed to think that she was some kind of whore.

Only Jarvis and Rhodey knew that she had never let anyone close to her like that.

Not in this lifetime.

And the prior one was over.

Time passed, she constructed, built and designed and generally was -as she noticed to her own surprise- happy with how her life was going.

* * *

Toni was 21 when Jarvis called her about a car accident her parents had been involved in.

Truthfully, she had thought her father would drink himself to death, but driving intoxicated and crashing came pretty close

Maria had also been in the car and now both banes of her existence were gone, leaving her strangely numb, before brushing the feeling away, recognizing that the time of freedom was over.

The old king is dead, long live the queen.

Despite everything she was surprised when everything was left to her, outside of a few small things going to other people, like aunt Peggy and Stane.

Truthfully, she couldn't stand Stane. He reminded her of Alcaster in a bad way.

But she was just taking over and the board barely trusted her, only barely quietened by her the patents she had registered between ending her studies and now.

There was no one she knew and trusted to investigate Stane. Only her own paranoia. Only her own instincts to warn her.

Carefulness would be her biggest ally now.

* * *

Times passes in days, weeks, months, years.

Jarvis dies of a stroke and Toni is heartbroken. These last years had been the sweetest, best she had ever spent with him, free from Howard and Maria hovering in the back of their minds.

She manages to collect more people to trust. Happy is her chauffeur now. He is a friend she values just like Pepper.

Pepper somehow reminds her of Delora. Strict and caring, hard working and not shying away from giving her a piece of her mind.

Jarvis’ death hurts, but she somehow gets through it.

During her time at the home she built in Malibu, she had become more hands-on again with her research. She built and programmed and designed and discovered.

There are robots in her workshop. DUM-E and U are sweethearts. Not the perfect beings robots are always portrayed as, but flawed beings. One of their kinds. Her creations and hers alone.

JARVIS was her masterpiece, ideas collected over weeks before finally starting to work on it in every free minute and only stopping when a familiar voice echoed out of the speakers she had prepared.

Years passed and she aged with time. She reached thirty and voices got loud about her being single, not having a partner, no children in sight. She ignored them and moved on.

Her heart had only ever belonged to her husband. And she hadn't run into a single person able to trust in equal measures.

* * *

She travelled to Afghanistan to present a new missile. It works wonderfully and she watches as the dust starts drifting in the wind.

She doesn't like building weapons. It isn't her favourite at least. She had started spreading the company out into other sectors as well, but it is undeniable that the weapon sector and the military contracts bring in too much money to just cut off.

There is a high number of employees in that branch as well and she can't just cut them off. Not all at once. During the last years she had handed out the expansions to other areas of the company.

Weapons were still well funded, but she had managed to wrestle away their state as main income of the company.

And then the convoy she was in got attacked.

* * *

The doctor saving her life is named Yinsen. Toni looks at the battery set into her chest and wants to scream, to cry, to make space for the violation of her life. She does by telling the terrorists to go to hell.

Her mind is racing during the torture, pain and panic and fear hazing the barrier between the lives. Mouth full of water she finds herself calling for Myth. Waltz. Fritz. Klaude. Even Varg. Whoever would come.

No one comes.

She lives in a time where the push of a button can destroy armies. Knights in shiny armour are no longer needed. Swords are useless against guns, rifles, bombs. No armour can stop a missle. Not a normal one. Not head on.

In her mind the blueprints take shape.

She builds a small reactor to get rid off the cables. To make herself independent. Then the real work starts.

When she stumbles through the desert, far away from the accursed cave, she wants to scream.

Yinsen is dead, most of the terrorists as well and she feels empty and in pain. The death of Yinsen hurts. It feels like the moment when she feared her mother had killed her friends in the Marchen. Just with the certain knowledge of it being true.

She is hungry. Thirsty. Tired.

Oh, so tired.

When she collapses, she can't remember hitting the sand.

Then she dreams.

* * *

_She doesn't know where she is, but she is lying somewhere soft and comfy. The smell surrounding her is painfully familiar._

_Toni buries her face in it takes deep breaths, trying to keep from crying as she remembers all the mornings of waking up early to enjoy the presence of the person she had chosen to trust her life with._

_"Hush. It's alright." It's a whisper. A comfort. A familiar voice in the darkness of her mind._

_Arms around her, holding her, cradling her close. She clings to the warmth accompanied by a steady heartbeat._

_"Where are you, my goddess? Where do I need to go?"_

_She can't bring herself to speak, because isn't he there already? So close to her?_

_She wakes up before she can think further of it._

* * *

Rhodey finds her in the desert. Brings her home, to safety.

She has nightmares. Is scared of the dark, of the cold.

There are press interviews and conferences and in all the chaos she orders JARVIS to comb through sell records and track every damn shipment until they know how these assholes got her stuff.

Withholding the miniature arc reactor from Stane, she builds a better one.

The original one is hidden away in her workshop. The new one gets put into her chest.

Toni prays that there'll be a time for her to be free of it.

As it is, she builds another suit.

As much as she wants to go and eradicate these bastards, she can't show her hand, yet. Cleaning up a puddle doesn't work, if the leak isn't filled up.

* * *

Stane tries to get her killed, then tries to kill her himself.

She runs and lets JARVIS close the doors on him. He screams and rages and she curls up unseen by him as she waits for police officers to come.

He is taken away and JARVIS finds everything in his system, turning it over to the officers.

While they comb through everything, she starts the clean-up.

Flying feels glorious, destroying the shipments is bittersweet.

She wished she could have done it earlier, saved more people from them. But she is a Queen in her own right and sometimes there are decisions you simply hate.

The dreams are still there, still of him, warm and safe and familiar.

He was supposed to be at her side forever. Both of them had never expected being reborn of all things.

* * *

She announces herself as Iron Queen, takes the questions, weathers the rumours and stays alive.

Then she notices the dark lines starting to creep from the reactor and wishes she never did.

Stepping back is impossible at this stage, she needs to be seen, to act outside the mansion.

Cursed to speed up her own death.

She doesn't tell anyone outside JARVIS. In her dreams she begs for forgiveness while arms tighten around her.

It's the only comfort and weakness she allows herself.

* * *

There is a senate hearing and the military demands access to her suit. She tells them no, ridicules the senator and makes a show of hacking the government.

Then she steps back and watches the fallout, going on vacation.

Her trip to Monaco gets interrupted by an attack.

Ivan Vanko is someone she starts hating with all her might for forcing her to speed up her death.

Things keep happening and she keeps using the suit, speeding up her own demise.

JARVIS puts her on a specific diet to slow it down, while they scramble to find a replacement for the palladium core.

But a solution seems out of range and with every negative result to the analysis of yet another element, she can feel her hope slip from her like smoke through her fingers.

* * *

She builds a suit for Rhodey, her mind replaying his request over and over again and it seems like something so insignificant now.

But it distracts her from her fears, from the way her heart stutters with each negative result.

She builds and builds and relishes in the result.

Rhodey is ecstatic and together they fly shooting upwards into the sky.

The burning sensation in her veins may only be her imagination. It may be real.

She hoped it wasn't the former.

She didn't know how to deal with the later.

* * *

JARVIS runs out of Elements to analyse and Toni breaks down in the privacy of her workshop.

She breaks down yet again when Pepper tracks her down and demands an answer for being named CEO without warning.

There are tears and a warm hug and someone holding her as JARVIS announces that he is going to start to analyse element combinations.

Rhodey scolds her for flying with him when it causes her state to worsen and Happy hides the case suit from her.

She lets them all.

* * *

SHIELD approaches her and tries to get hooks into her life.

Natalia Rushman is introduced to her and Toni shrugs it off.

Fury tries to pull at her heartstrings by mentioning Howard, how he knew him. How Howard was a founder of SHIELD.

The only thing it causes are teeth biting into her soul, trying to drain the life out of her.

At night she keeps dreaming. Keeps pleading for a way to live. She doesn't want to die.

He doesn't ask, where she is anymore.

He doesn't let go either.

* * *

There is a plan among the things Fury handed over to her.

It's the plan of the expo her father created.

She sees it, sees something _in_ it and starts analysing it, just because she can't stand not knowing.

The result is the element that's going to save her live and she hates it.

She calls it Alcastnium. She hated Alcaster and she hated Howard. But in this life Alcaster didn't exist. There is nothing here, no one here to know who he is.

And she doesn't want to add another thing to the world to remember Howard by.

* * *

Ivan Vanko was alive and then dead again.

The expo gets ruined by exploding drones.

She is going to live. The later ones is the one thing surprising her most.

Rhodey hugs her, Pepper cries, Happy does as well.

SHIELD claims to not want her. Iron Queen wanted, Toni Stark not recommended. As if daring her to try to change their minds, to try to prove them otherwise.

She doesn't give an inch and just leaves them behind.

When she sleeps again, _dreams again_ , he is there, cradling her like she is the most precious thing in existence.

_"I'm going to live."_

_She says it and he holds her tighter. She ignores the feeling of hot tears soaking her hair._

_"Where are you?" He begs, pleads for an answer. "Please! Please, tell me! Which planet!?"_

_She thinks about the fear, about knowing that she was going to die, the morbid certainty of it. Then her mind catches up to what he said._

_"Earth! I'm on a Earth, a blue planet, the third of eight in this solar system!"_

_Where was he to ask such a question? What did he know? What did he learn? What kind of tools did he have?_

_"Come to me?" She asks and for the first time pushes away from him to try to see his new face._

_Somehow she can't see clear features, just black hair and green eyes._

_"Always," he breathes cupping her face. "Always. Everything for you."_

_His lips meet her forehead and for the first time she believes he is more than a memory twisted into what she wished for._


	2. Chapter 2

He comes to himself cold, alone and hungry, weak from whatever had happened before.

No clear word escapes his throat, just weak cries. Still someone hears, comes, choses to care.

It's a rare gesture, he knows, has learned long ago. His sight is blurry, he can barely see, but he wishes he could, to see who took him from what could only be his death.

There are voices, loud and strict, cutting through cold air like blades through leather.

He doesn't bother with crying now that be is safe and warm. Myth only uses his blurry sight to identify the biggest difference between himself and the man holding him to pick up the difference in colour and will the tiny tickle of magic to _change_ physical matter like he had changed perception of his being so long ago, to be Mythros instead of Myth.

Exhausted from the action he sleeps.

His dreams are empty and lonely.

* * *

His new mother is called Frigga, his father is Odin, his brother is Thor.

He himself is Loki and can see from the very beginning that he is the odd one out with his dark hair and green eyes.

Thor is loud and brash and always eager to fight.

Odin is distant, pays enough attention to scold but doesn't deem it necessary to praise.

Frigga is his favourite, warm voice, warm gaze and always there as an anchor in this new world.

He thinks about making himself match her and twists his magic to make himself blonde. The reflection looks strange, _wrong_. Not like himself.

In the end he decides to not delude his own mind. His own appearance will remind him of where he woke up. That he wasn't from here. That there had been a life before.

He still eagerly grasps every boon granted, thirsty for the safety this home provides.

* * *

Thor is his father's son, all swinging weapons and fighting delighted by it.

Myth -Loki, it is Loki now- welcomes being Frigga's.

He was magic, is magic, will be magic and he rejects being anything else.

People talk, laugh, jest. It's a woman's art, they say. It's shameful, they laugh. Loki knows, if he ever learns to use a proper blade, he'll never say it, show it, let them know.

Another ace up his sleeve, he is going to store, just in case.

Frigga doesn't care either way. She is delighted by his interest. There is no daughter for her to teach and Thor can't even fake interest.

Loki can feel Odin watch from afar and wonders what he thinks.

* * *

Even in this life, he doesn't quite fit. 

He is quiet and watchful and controlled. His brother is loud and brash and all temperament and hit blood.

It isn't hard for people to overlook him, Thor being the beacon he is. It still hurts. In a way it feels like being compared to Waltz again. Always smiling Waltz, who was perfect and could do no wrong.

It even fits. In comparison to Thor he isn't enough, never enough. Which is strange in its own way, because he isn't even trying to be competitive. Their fields of interest are utterly different.

The pain is still there and he watches his brother having a gaggle of followers and wonders if he should bother to find someone who looks at Thor and still stays with him.

He tries a few times and it never lasts and he stops bothering.

Thor doesn't notice, never notices and he wonders if that brute is ever going to grow out of it.

* * *

Childhood passes and moves on to what he thinks may be puberty.

Thor has lovers, girls following him in gaggles and Loki finds himself missing his wife.

He has no need for a bright eyed naive air head and doesn't see anything he likes in the few girls learning near him, envying him for his skills.

One day during dinner Thor jests at him, asks him if there is any girl, he dreams about. He stays quiet, pondering if he should mention how his dreams are empty and dark and the longing he feels for something out of reach.

No words escape him for years. Maybe decades, time is strange here.

But he after his voice broke, he searches out his mother and tells her.

"My dreams are a void," he says. "I feel like there is something missing, but I can't say what."

Frigga pulls him close and cries, before telling him of soulmates and being fated to be with someone.

"This void," she says, "Means the person isn't there anymore."

Not there anymore? Or not there _yet?_

When he asks that question, Frigga stills, thoughtful.

She doesn't answer. Maybe she doesn't know. Maybe she is unwilling to smash his hope. He lets her be.

* * *

"Where I am from?" he asks Odin when they are alone.

One eye looks at him and the man replies with: "You're my son."

Loki looks into the mirror next to himself and doesn't look at him, when he continues. "I'm not questioning that," he says, watching his features shift a bit in the glass, hair lightening to blond. "I know the term 'family resemblance'."

He watches Odin as his hair turns back again, features reverting back as well. "Where am I from?"

The man frowns and says nothing for a while. "You're my son. That is all that matters."

Loki wishes that is enough. Hopes, it is.

Fears the time when it isn't.

* * *

Thor has gained a loyal following of three warriors and a girl wanting to fight and go on adventures.

He remembers Lucette, learning riding and sword fighting and everything in between, curious about what she had missed during her time of isolation.

Her tutors, her father and all knights had let out a sigh of relief when she had declared her unwillingness to have any big adventures. She had wanted to learn useful skills, nothing else.

Sif doesn't want to be just a woman among men. She wants to be someone known and recognized.

Loki wonders if Thor even notices how she looks at him, eyes full of want.

Wonders if the brute notices how they barely spend time together anymore.

He lets it go and turns to go his lessons, the same excuse he always used since he was 'too old' to search out his mother, just to spend time with her.

* * *

His dreams turn strange and the hole seems to fill. He is an adult now, his brother's keeper, when he shouldn't need to be.

With every interference he and his group like him less. They laugh at him, mock him, try to get a rise out of him.

He thinks about asking his mother if he should let the reins go, to let his brother run freely, even if it leads to damnation.

Instead he asks her: "Where am I from?'

She looks at him, eyes sad. "You're my son," she says. "I love you."

"I know," he says.

He'll make it enough.

He fears the time when he can't.

* * *

He loosens the reins he has on Thor. He doesn't let him off the leash, but stops shielding him from everything.

His brother is brought back bloody, wounded and shuffled away to the healers, when the trip was supposed to be a simple hunting expedition.

Odin doesn't ask him where he was, knows where he _wasn't_.

Loki takes in the knowing look in the remaining eye and is thankful his father doesn't ask him.

Fear gnaws at him in the dark when he can't sleep.

In his dreams he is alone.

* * *

They both grow, his parents age, everything happens so _slow_.

He is sure he spent more time as a child than his first life had been long.

"Where did you take me from?" he asks one evening alone with Odin.

The single eye glared. "You're my son."

There is a bout of silence. "I became your son at that point. By your choice," Loki admits easily. "I'm curious, though. Why me? Why not anyone else?"

Odin stills and looks and seems to see him for the first time since a point shortly after he started learning magic and was more Frigga's than his.

"You're mine, now," he agrees. "You were Laufey's."

The king of the Frost Giants. Their enemies.

Instead of answering, he just nods and lets it go, curiosity sated.

His dreams are empty. He is happy he can't have nightmares.

* * *

His dreams shift. The loneliness fills and he tells his mother of this strange change.

She hugs him close, whispers thanks for her prayers into his ears and wishes him all the luck of the world to find his other half.

Thor is loud and brash like he had always been, his wounds growing less as his fighting skills improve, but where his body grows, his mind doesn't.

For the first time since forever he doesn't care, spending his time wandering the gardens, pondering who fate choose for him.

He finds himself asking Odin if he is allowed to go looking when the time comes.

His father looks at him and doesn't say anything.

Loki knows it'll depend on when and where.

Odin knows as well.

His fears persist, if only for different reasons.

* * *

Odin takes him to the vault, to show him the Casket of Ancient Winters, while there is talk about a crowning Thor king. 

It is beautiful in its own way and Loki finds himself walking the snowy land trying to match the Casket to the nature around him.

It isn't his first trip when he meets a few Jotuns, but stays away, watches them carefully as they watch back.

Curiosity rears its head though and he tries to talk, to ask questions about everything around him to understand this still strange place he was taken from.

The Jotun don't like him, don't like his questions and ask him to leave.

He decides that there is no reason to agitate them and does.

This may be his birth place, he decides, but not his home.

* * *

There is life in his dreams, a warm body meeting his and he forgets all thoughts of frost and winter as his fingers meet warm skin.

Frost Giants aren't warm. He has no reason to go there.

Humanoid and warm and looking just like an Asgardian, if only smaller. She is wounded and tired and he soothes her, wishes to know where she is, _asks_ but doesn't receive an answer.

The void is filled and he wishes to hold her for real. She openly accepts his warmth, his touch, his being, but rarely talks.

He wonders, if she believes him real.

* * *

He tells Odin what he knows and there seems something to relax in the aged man. Maybe he is just happy, it isn't a Jotun.

Frigga is ecstatic and questions him thoroughly.

Loki ignores the talk of Thor being crowned king, dozing the days away to snatch as much time with his mate as possible.

He is sure it is his wife in different shape, just like him.

He should have paid more attention to Thor.

* * *

The crowning doesn't happen and Loki is in pain, feeling Frigga soothing his hurts.

His ribcage hurts, where the hammer connected and Thor is nowhere in sight.

'Intruder!' he had shouted at seeing Loki, wearing his native skin. Attacks had followed with no time to talk, lightning smashing at him until he called upon ice to bring safety and walls the hammer couldn't smash apart.

Back to pale skin and warm flesh, Loki doesn't dare to reach for the Casket he had been about to study up close, where close proximity had brought his native skin to the surface.

Thor attacked him. Had tried to kill him.

It hurts more than he ever wants to admit.

* * *

Odin is furious, collects his son and wayward friends from the realm of ice and snow after they already managed to start a war and exiles the golden child of Odin to Midgard.

Thor shouts for Loki, who avoids coming close, fearing pain and death awaiting him under a metallic hammer smelling of ozone.

Frigga is his mother. Odin is his father. Maybe it is better if Thor isn't his brother.

The thought still hurts and he wraps dreams and hopes around himself, trying to ease the fears and pain, to cover them up with something else.

In this chaos his mate threatens to die.

* * *

Odin falls into Odin's sleep, Frigga runs herself ragged with worry and suddenly Loki is on the throne.

The warrior three and Sif try to get him to lift Thor's exile. When he doesn't, they run off to him.

Loki warns Heimdall. "One more slight," he says, barely keeping himself from snarling, "And you can join them in their exile."

If they want to commit treason so much, let them. Elite warriors or not, there are only four of them and Thor is human right now.

He has Jotun leaders to assassinate.

Blue skin blends in beautifully among the Jotun.

He isn't the only runt. They're rare in big cities, and less rare in villages, where every hand is needed for work.

A few die and armies fall into disarray with no one to lead them.

During the day he rules, collects information, sneaks around.

At night, knives and poison strike.

He fears for his mate, no matter the time.

* * *

Nothing seems to change, while everything does.

The war against the frost giants doesn't change anything in Asgard, doesn't touch them.

They can't reach the Asgardians without help. Loki can reach them without using the Bifrost. He doesn't know if they know of the shadow paths, but he knows, you can't lead an army through them.

So he watches and strikes the weak points and sends small strike troops into important, easy to hold positions and slowly chokes the will to fight out of the Frost Giants thirsting for war.

"Leave the civilians alone," he orders the men. "There is no reason to turn Laufey's uprising into an all out war."

Loki doesn't know if the Jotun can fight an all-out war without the Casket, but he knows, he doesn't want to deal with one.

Odin sleeps on, his mate wrangles with death and he doesn't know how to help either.

Fear of her death, keeps him awake. The need to know she still lives lets him enter the dream to reach out to her.

He doesn't tell anyone.

* * *

Thor stays on Midgard, the warrior three and Sif stay with him and Loki tries to forget the feeling of a hammer hitting his ribs.

He plays with the thought of sending the Destroyer to retrieve them. He looks at his mother and stills his hands.

Heimdall is ever watchful and if anyone tries to get to Thor, he either doesn't let them path or does so in a way, he doesn't notice.

It calms his mind that there is still some resemblance of control in his life.

He doesn't know, who knows of his ancestry among the Asgardians, doesn't dare to ask his mother without anyone else there to take the throne.

Court is wary of him, no one really knows why Thor went to the realm of ice to retrieve him, when he never left to begin with.

His way to wage war is unloved as well. It costs them little, endangers just as many as necessary.

There are no big battles for warriors to prove themselves in, no deaths full of glory and honour. No gates to Valhalla open in this war.

There are murmurs against him, whispers about him being a coward. A tradition breaker. That he bares the gates shut intentionally.

That the throne should be Thor's.

Loki wrangles his fears down and starts looking into a way to speed up his father's recovery, praying that everything goes well.

He hides his fears and true skin.

He managed to hide in plain sight before. Myth was apprentice where Loki was prince. Mythros was advisor where Loki is king, always deceiving, always hiding, never showing his true self.

He can't be king in this place. He doesn't _fit_.

The acknowledgement hurts.

But he can play the role until either Thor gets himself together or Odin awakes.

One day after another. At least one of these two should come to pass 

His dreams are full of fear and insecurities of his mates survival.

Her warmth is the only comfort he has.

* * *

Despite all fears, all worries nothing he fears comes to pass.

Odin awakens and takes stock of the state his kingdom is in. He praises the little number of casualties in the war and takes a close look at the holdings taken and camps erected.

Loki lets him take over the war effort and takes care of his mind for a bit, by hiding away in his quarters and crying in relief.

His exhausted sleep comes with the knowledge that his mate will live. She tells him where she is and he wants to laugh hysterically at the information.

Odin is not happy about letting him go to Midgard the humans call Earth. He still lets him go.

"The humans found the Tesseract," he says. "They aren't ready yet. Retrieve it, before they destroy themselves."

After a pause he adds: "If you find the warriors, send them here. I'll judge their actions."

A whisper inside him hopes for further punishment, but he knows it is unlikely with the exile already in action. The disappointment Odin directs at Heimdall still tastes sweet, though.

Loki watches from the rainbow bridge, having bid his parents goodbye and greets the colours racing past him.


	3. Chapter 3

Toni is free from the poison, free from the fear of imminent death and relishes in it.

SI is running as well as ever, Pepper running it masterfully as CEO and she couldn't wish for anyone better.

JARVIS watches SHIELD and informs her about big things.

She learns about Steve Rogers being found. Howard would have had a field day. Toni simply doesn't care. Rogers or not, Howard wouldn't have paid attention to her anyway, and so he had at least been distracted.

Captain America doesn't matter to her. She isn't aunt Peggy, who had in the end been so submerged into work that they had grown distant, far enough so that she had learned of her sickness only by chance.

Toni is back moving around in her trailer again, her returning health making her quiver with energy and making her thirst for freedom outside the city. JARVIS keeps a suit ready to send to her, in case of emergency.

She upgraded the trailer with a small arc reactor and it runs beautifully. No reason to refuel, just needing to get the water tanks refilled.

She is free and she loves it.

Then SHIELD gives her a call and name it an emergency. JARVIS confirms they lost an ominous power source to an extraterrestrial intruder and she remembers Myth asking where she is.

Fear gnaws at her that it is him. Hope burns that it isn't. She prays for the later.

* * *

She meets a rag-tag group of people on a helicarrier. A redhead in leather, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and a small group standing together, all muscles and distrust, four men, one woman.

She recognizes Coulson from the prior meeting with SHIELD, nods his way and nothing else.

There is news of a brainwashed agent stealing iridium in Germany.

The news come late though. There has been a mass accident near the facility and a fire alarm keeps the thievery from being discovered until the clean-up begins.

Out of curiosity, Toni lets JARVIS check SHIELD's database for information on the agents and find other stuff in-between, while scanning for the Tesseract.

There are weapon inventories among other things. 'Phase 2' sounds bad, but nothing she wants to deal with in enemy territory, so she copies the files away for depth analysis later on.

Fury storms in to demand answers, she interrupts his triad. "You still kept something from Howard. Didn't you think I might want the vibranium back as well?"

The director stares at her silently and then turns away. "We can talk about that later," he declares, just in time for Rogers to storm into the laboratory, holding a big weapon.

Toni knows about preventative development, warnings to keep other factions at bay. She doesn't approve, but she has been in the weapon industry for quite some time and knows how military leaders think.

No casualties are a good result. If there aren't even any fights to begin with, there aren't even deployment costs. Aftercare costs. Medical leave.

The best toys are the ones never needed, where the demonstration is enough to make deployment unnecessary.

The military will still buy it, just like the next better batch and the one after.

That's what humans are like. At least in these positions.

Captain America doesn't approve, not even of her neutral opinion. Ignores that Howard _started_ the company as weapon production.

"Take the suit away and what are you?" the man glares at her.

Unimpressed, she looks back. "First: Your precious shield is still SI property," she starts calmly. "And not yours to claim. Second: A glorified labrat that reached its position on the wave of someone else's work, may want to get of its high horse. Super strength isn't so impressive anymore in these days."

She watches blue eyes colden, fists tighten and wonders if she wants him to attack.

"The shield was a present from _your_ father," the man spits out. "He gave it to _me._ "

"He loaned it to the military during wartime. There are papers of it with the condition of return with the war over." Howard had been a businessman after all. "A big chunk of vibranium in a simple disk? Leave it like that? Don't be stupid. Do you have any idea what it is worth?"

A scan result interrupts them and a strange reading appears on the radar, before disappearing again.

Toni doesn't bother staying in the lab at that point. It feels crowded. She feels caged in there.

She hates talking about that man. It always ruins her mood.

Alcaster had at least been honest about his opinion of her in the end.

* * *

She sleeps and dreams and meets Myth. He is warm against her and informs her about his recent arrival.

He is on earth now, and for the first time the connection is strong enough that they can look at each other, features clear.

Taking in the pale skin and green eyes and black hair he looks nothing like the thing from SHIELD's recordings and she lets out a sigh of relief.

He traces her cheek with his thumbs, cupping her face and then lays a palm over the blue glow of the generator.

 _"Stay safe,"_ he pleads. She can only give him a wry smile.

_"I'll try."_

Alarms blare, waking her up from her sleep, informing her of the Tesseract being found.

It's in New York, right on top of her tower.

Fury wants to make a speech about the Avengers assembling. She doesn't bother to listen and calls in all helicopters in reach for evacuation.

* * *

There is a _thing_ on her tower, calling itself Ebony Maws. A scientist opens the portal, an agent guards him, aliens spill from the hole in the sky.

Aggressive ones.

Toni informs Rhodey, who informs the military for better deployment.

They'll need a lot of air support.

The fight goes on and she sees death, destruction and hates how small she feels.

Natasha goes up against the Agent and Toni takes on the alien, not bothering with small talk. She dodges and weaves a lot, but can't seem to get a hit in until her opponent suddenly stumbles and falls over, sceptre falling down, rolling over the floor, dagger sticking in its neck.

It's slim and green and blinks in the light. She takes it, full of wonder, but can't determine where it is from.

Then there is rolling thunder, lightning strikes and there is a nuke coming in.

She can't stand back, can't allow it to hit, not with so many people there.

The sceptre goes to Natasha, Toni takes off for interception of the missile.

Fear claws at her and she refuses to make it slow her down.

* * *

In the dark void she floats, purple being reaching out for her, missile stopped from exploding. It tries to hold her, to keep her from returning.

A giant hand closes around her arm.

But there is something pulling her back and it jerks her to the portal. Back to earth, out if the cold emptiness. The alien holds and she drives the dagger into its arm.

She is through the portal and that thing isn't when the hole closes.

The hand opens as half a torso and maybe a quarter of its head detach and fall.

Fall past her and away, as her thrusters stutter to live for a moment and stop again.

But she still floats to the roof.

Her helmet is pried open, lips touch her forehead and she sinks into exhausted sleep as pain fades.

Coulson finds her laying next to the broken gadget, sceptre still there, but cube nowhere in sight.

Pepper cries again, people cheer for her on tv and the mood is surprisingly well.

She feels calm, remembering soft touches and the feeling of warmth embracing her.

A week after, she finds herself in a café and a young man in dark trousers, grey shirt and mischievous green eyes joins her, camera bag at his side, just big enough for the cube.

They both don't talk about that thing, though.

It is the first time that she really doesn't care about tabloids.

* * *

Pepper, Rhodey and Happy interrogate Loki. He goes by Mythros, though. Thor is known widely for what he did after revoking his own exile.

All Asgardians have officially left earth and he admits he can't stay long, needing to move the cube away and to check with Odin who big purple was.

He still joins her in her trailer, delighted by all the small gadgets she eagerly shows him.

JARVIS may question her sanity, though, and she tells him about these memories, feeling so much better knowing that he is _real_ and _hers_ and _here_.

He is not taking her along right away. In the dark of the night, he tells her what happened between himself and Thor and she can't become collateral.

He won't allow it. She holds him and listens to his heartbeat until it calms and both never mention the tears.

But time passes and he needs to leave. He gives her a necklace as a promise with so many protective spells that she can almost taste them in the air.

He was delighted by her new skills, and after they part, soaking in each other's warmth she starts testing how to fuel engines with magic.

In Asgard Loki presents Odin with the cube, none of the warrior three nor Sif or Thor in sight.

* * *

Loki wants to return to earth right away but can't.

Odin recognized the remains of the purple alien and called in his generals to deal with the remaining army.

He can't leave, but can send one thing of his choice to her and choses a communication device not unlike these webcams for video calls she showed him.

He pens an instruction manual and sends it on its way. Frigga watches him, fond smile on her face and tells him of patience. He doesn't _want_ to be patient, wants to have her close.

He would bring her, but she wouldn't be happy with that on short notice.

And then there is Thor.

The warriors three are imprisoned, and Sif with them for committing treason. Thor is angry about it, furious, and Loki doesn't dare to go near him. The pain of getting a hammer against his body faded long ago, only phantom pain remaining, but the memories are sharp.

While he was gone, the knowledge of his adoption was spread, partly by Odin, partly by Frigga, leaving the blonde thunder wielder confused and upset.

He insists he couldn't have known that it was Loki, but can't answer why he hadn't thought that it was an ambassador.

The thunderer tries to corner his black haired brother, but fails repeatedly as Loki hides and flees his presence, unwilling to be alone with him.

He still dreams. Talking is done during the day, but the nights are warm and safe, echoed by the memories of the real thing.

* * *

Toni misses her male companion dearly, spends some time depressed and then the communication device arrives and she bounces back quickly enough.

They talk, learn about each other's lives and she enjoys being able to talk freely about everything. Tabloids are trying to unearth him for questions, photos, interviews, gossip about who he is and what he has that made Anthonia Stark choose him.

The whole thing gets ignored by her as she hounds SHIELD for the vibranium or a replacement amount of it.

The so called Avengers disassembled after the invasion at some point she didn't pay attention to, bathing in the presence of her other half.

SHIELD is elusive now and when she finally reaches Fury, the man isn't happy with her demand. She doesn't care.

The only defence the man has, is that Toni, despite everything, is unwilling to sabotage such a big organisation. She takes comfort in the cube being gone.

There are also terrorist attacks happening.

Pepper meets with a possible business associate and Happy gets hurt.

Toni will not stand for it.

* * *

There is a wild hunt out of the ones responsible for the attack within six hours. Someone calling himself 'The Mandarin' claims responsibility and Toni has JARVIS sneaking into systems after system to trail him.

At the side she investigates the explosives and meets a child called Harley.

She talks with him, while looking at a crater from an explosion. He reminds her of how bitter she had been during her first childhood and lets JARVIS set up a scholarship in a short break from reasonability.

Helping everyone is impossible. She shouldn't hand out help to random people like that. Not personally. But she is stressed and all wound up and just needs an outlet where she can _do_ something.

Investigations get stuck and cursing, she decides on a gamble and calls out a challenge to the Mandarin.

Her home in Malibu is destroyed by attack helicopters and she has JARVIS track them home.

Someone tries to kidnap Pepper and imprisons Rhodey and she draws the line.

The armour of the 'Iron Patriot' destroys the Air Force One and the president gets kidnapped by Killian.

Tracking him down, she calls Loki in for help and he eagerly responds, quoting improved relations to Midgard to his father.

A show of force with the military and all her previously built armours march up to secure Killian and his soldiers.

When the man tries to point to the president as his hostage, he is forced to witness the illusion unravel, the man long secured from his containment.

Officially declared as terrorists some soldiers explode, desperately trying to get away. Killian dies, the Mandarin gets apprehended and Loki gets introduced to the president as an Asgardian prince by Toni.

* * *

Happy recovers slowly and with everything calming down, Toni and Loki sit down to tinker around with a second set of communicators. If Toni accompanies her -Loki called them soulmates- to Asgard, she doesn't want to leave her connection with JARVIS behind.

The devices can reach to Asgard in real time, but first they need to figure out how much data can be sent over and in which format.

It is fun and new and she finds herself sitting on his lap on the floor most times, leaning back against his chest, as he watches over her shoulder what she is drawing on the tablet.

The feeling is relaxing and if she gets tired, she just needs to lean back and close her eyes to sleep.

Sometimes he picks her up and carries her around while she keeps designing and typing and places her down at the kitchen table for food.

Pepper, Rhodey and Happy are amused by their behaviour, but happy for them.

It is a calm time and she feels like a happy cat, stretching in an everlasting sunbeam.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that was it.^^  
> This is the last chapter of this small project and I hope you guys liked it.

Toni goes to Asgard with Loki.

There is a blur of colours passing by her, galaxies hurling past and when she stands on stable ground again, they are in a chamber with a dark skinned man in golden armour, looking at them with glowing eyes.

But there are many people there and Loki quickly pulls her aside, and soon there is a new connection established and people leave, just for another one to be there for other arrivals

When she asks what's happening, he just says how Odin is sending out troops to hunt down the remains of the army that attacked Midgard.

Toni remembers the mass of forces hovering in the void of space and shivers, letting Loki pull her away, out of the chamber to let people go about their work.

The first thing she does is activate the small headset, to establish contact with JARVIS. Her old friend pings in with no trouble and something inside her relaxes.

Then they are on their way.

* * *

Asgard looks like science fiction come alive in a medieval setting.

It's golden and flickers in the sunlight and she finds herself twirling around, trying to take every sight in.

It's like a dance, as she twists and turns, mind racing a million miles an hour, Loki pulling her around people and other obstacles, commenting and pointing out things to her, as he walks with her.

It looks all wonderful and she is torn between in-depth inspection and missing something fleeting by stopping. JARVIS records everything for her, though.

It takes much time for them to reach the palace, as Loki leads her in a spiral to it, slowly pulling the cycles tighter.

Frigga greets her warmly, motherly amusement in her eyes as Loki introduces them. The woman is beautiful and hugs her, before Toni can even react.

The whispered thanks for existing and choosing her son is not something she expected. But she doesn't know how she could have chosen differently and latches onto Loki's arm, just to get distracted by something new and ask more questions right away.

Odin is busy with something stately and their greeting starts with him walking in on them as they take apart Loki's personal flight vehicle for science, as he explains every single piece to her and what it does, and her building a holographic 3D model of it with her newest gadget.

It's clean enough work for them to stop on a moment’s notice to properly greet the man, who is father and king and seems a lot better at it than Howard was as company founder and father.

There is no comparison between Maria and Frigga. The queen would be so far higher on the scale that she would be on Asgard and Maria in her grave on earth.

Thor is nowhere to be seen, and Toni doesn't ask about him.

* * *

The time spent on Asgard is like spending time in heaven. There is a library, a workbench put aside for her, a tablet for notes.

Toni spends time with Frigga when Loki is away for some reason and it is easy to see why he adored her so much.

Frigga gets bright eyed when Toni says so and concentrates on her knitting for a bit.

Toni knows some stuff about knitting, had sometimes thought about taking up sewing again, as she had in her old life, but then engineering had caught her eye and everything else had left her mind. Now her hands are more familiar with cables and wires than wool and cloth and she is not sorry for it.

Instead she talks to Frigga about all the different patterns that are on earth and pulls up holographic pictures from them. It's nice enough to even try it out for herself a bit.

"Doing something by hand, creation by hand, gives it power," Frigga says, watching her slowly stumble through unfamiliar movement of fingers and hands. The queen says that it can impress an echo of your will into things, if you're a mage.

Toni shows her the necklace and Frigga traces her fingers over the emerald pendant circled by a snake and both women smile.

It makes seeing it in a reflection much sweeter.

* * *

Something happens on earth. JARVIS informs her about an incident in London and Loki curses about the convergence.

Thor leaves and returns with an earth woman and Odin is furious that he brings an unknown power to Asgard without informing anyone.

"It doesn't belong on Asgard," he says later after they leave Thor with his ladylove and Toni leaves her hiding place. "It twists reality. It's dangerous. And we aren't a whole planet in a stable orbit around a star."

He could have been less rude, she thinks, but she can see his point. He is a king. He thinks about his people. The outsider, who is a host of a dangerous force, is a threat.

She wants to ask why Thor didn't call Asgardian healers to earth. Then wonders if he is trying to make up for not even calling.

She runs into Jane some time later, when she is with Frigga. Loki is away, trying to help migrate the displacements if the convergence, and she feels lonely despite JARVIS’ voice in her ear.

"You're from earth as well?" Jane exclaims in surprise at seeing her. "Since when are you here?"

"A bit after president Ellis got kidnapped. Bonding vacation," Toni just shrugs.

Jane looks utterly confused and Frigga starts explaining Soulmates to her.

Then the alarm of an attack sounds.

* * *

There are dark elves in the palace and Loki won't stand for it. Won't allow anyone to rip his small family apart.

The elves sneaked in with the troops returning from fighting the Chitauri and more arrived with spaceships.

Loki arrives with the bifrost and discards of all of the ones he sees with prejudice.

He sees a thing trying to strike down his mother and something inside him _snaps._

There is ice in his veins a blizzard in his breath and an ice age descends on the unworthy lifeform that dares to raise his hand against someone that is _his_.

The wall of ice parts killer and victim and Kurse stands no chance against the might of the Casket of Ancient Winter Loki inflicts on him.

The blizzard races through Asgard, leaving winter and bodies with frozen blood in its wake and when he finds back to himself Toni is around his neck, holding onto him as she whispers to him to calm him. Voice like spring sun after a winter night.

Frigga lives, wounded and quickly tended to by healers. Odin finds her there and holds her tight.

Thor hugs Loki despite blue skin and red eyes and Loki wonders if he'll find enough courage to call him brother again in the future.

Not yet, though, but it still seems to heal something. It's the first time since the incident that he can stand to be near his brother again.

* * *

Thor tries to trick Malekith. It fails, but Loki gives him props for trying.

But now they need to deal with the dark elf having the Aether.

The dark elves move to earth to start their attack and Thor starts wrangling with their leader.

Loki goes as well, parting from Toni on earth as she leaves to help with the evacuation and rounding up things not native to earth.

He wonders what he looks like, skin still dark blue and markings visible, wielding ice like Toni her tools.

The military at least understands enough to label him friendly enough to not shoot him.

Then there are thundering steppes and a full grown frost beast comes barreling down the street, eating an elf along the way.

Loki freezes as the beast stops in the cold his presence created and starts rounding him curiously. A nudge against his hands and he carefully starts petting its face. A deep purr escapes the beast and something inside him moves.

He can't remember ever having wanted a pet before, but there had been mentions of Laufey having used them as parts of his army before. And it wasn't like he needed to keep it at Asgard…

Smiling to himself, he looked pulled up a ring of ice around the beast and a group of dark elves and settles to watch.

* * *

Toni stays on earth as both realms start the clean-up and rebuilding.

Loki makes jumps between Asgard, earth and Jotunheim of all places. He introduces her to his newest pet and makes sure it recognises her. Toni isn't sure how, if by smell or sight. But Loki is delighted by it and it's not much different as she behaves with her bots.

To her own surprise, Frigga visits, still wounded but curious about her life.

Toni shows her the trailer she spends to travel in and replaces the workbench with a bed and together they travel all over America for some time.

Frigga is delighted by the principal of a moving home. She has lived on Asgard for ages, being mother and queen for ages and while she had never felt the need to travel she admits to long hunting trips in her youth and sleeping in tents.

Taking your home, a space of your choice with you is a novel principle she heard of merchants doing, but never travellers.

There are so many different things to show and explain and Toni lives to share what she learnt in her life.

Odin comes to check on his wayward wife and finds them looking at the Niagara Falls, a wonder of earthly nature.

They bid each other goodbye as the couple returns to Asgard, Loki taking his mother's place in the trailer.

It is utter bliss and they both enjoy each minute together.

* * *

Toni needs to free herself of a warm embrace as JARVIS wakes her.

He tells her of a big breach in SHIELD's firewalls. Files are getting leaked with a rasant speed he can barely keep up with and Toni is up within a moment to help, lines of code flickering past her eyes, to slow it down enough to help him filter through the files.

Loki does something, she doesn't know what. Either she speeds up, or the world slows down, she doesn't know and doesn't have the time to ask, to investigate what's happening.

Loki takes it upon himself to check that out and she lets him, as she works, calmed that she can concentrate on her own part of the work for that.

She finally overloads the servers with enough software to make them crash. Her trusted AI is able to access the servers anyway and starts making the files accessible to the different agencies only, which should keep collateral damage as low as possible.

She still makes sure to send people to the SHIELD personnel, whose files were leaked. She doesn't bother with HYDRA personnel.

The helicarriers are a different matter, though. She looks at the pictures of the crashed vehicles and curses until she feels better. She orders JARVIS to sent her suits to help, thinks about what to do and lets Loki pull her into onto his lap.

She falls asleep, exhausted from the toll the spell took.

* * *

More time passes and ripples settle.

A few people send her thank you cards and a check turns out that they are from agents that would have been burned without her involvement.

Rogers and Romanoff burned many bridges with that stunt and none of the members of SHIELD, HYDRA or not, are happy about the leak.

There are a few weeks of silence. Loki pendles between realms and then shows off a collar to her that allows his newest pet -freshly named Knut- to travel to them when they need help.

Loki calls it a familiar and Toni is becoming quite fond of it. Knut chases after birds, rolls over cars to inspect them and likes steel scraps to scratch his back on. He really hates heat though.

Rhodey takes one look at the thing in the underground laboratory and just walks back out. He returns later, Loki pulling him inside for the mandatory introduction to Knut.

* * *

Loki is on Asgard when Odin appears to her. He tells her of the sceptre still on earth from the invasion at New York. He tells her of infinity stones and how their confrontation with the army unearthed that the sceptre is another one, just like the Tesseract.

Toni thinks of the blue cube opening a portal and wonders at the effects inflicted on the mind, caused by a too curious scientist.

She shoves the images into the drawer for nightmares and asks him what he plans to do with the stones.

Odin seems to want to avoid the topic, before telling her of his first-born, who had been born for war and unable to adjust to peace.

"Death may have been a mercy in the long run," he admits. "But she is still my child. It is a spell similar to the one that had been on Thor. If Hela had been willing to change -just _willing_ to- she would be free."

He is unsure if he should let the seal collapse, killing her or just change the power source to an infinity stone, but he needs the mind stone to let her sleep during the adjustment.

Toni tells him to leave enough information if he does the later, in case something goes wrong.

JARVIS starts looking for the sceptre right after the king leaves.

* * *

The sceptre turns out to be in a HYDRA base in Sokovia.

Toni informs authorities of the terrorists having an alien artifact of unknown power and pulls Loki and Thor in for help, just in case.

Von Strucker's base gets attacked and SHIELD tries to get involved and gets rebuffed.

There are twins that got experimented on. The girl tries to do something with her mind and the necklace gets hot enough to almost burn her as the protective spells kick in.

They escape and the sceptre is retrieved.

Later the sceptre is placed in her laboratory, shielded by spells and steel. Toni tries to run scans from afar.

Thor asks her why, when the sceptre is retrieved.

"The arc reactor is based on the Tesseract and can be built without it," she replies. "The girl had mind altering powers, and most humans don't have a defence against it. And they may have stored the data somewhere else."

"You think they may be able to recreate the feat, without the stone," Thor frowned. "What are you doing?"

"Just checking what blocks the output of the stone via scanners encased in different materials. We don't have mages after all. And who knows what we'll stumble upon in the future."

* * *

Something goes wrong in the middle of the night.

Alarms blare as JARVIS puts himself into a lockdown due to core code getting attacked. In the minutes it takes him to reboot, something uses his connection to escape.

Thor is confused how that could have happened, when no one had been near the sceptre.

"Maybe a failsafe from Thanos," Loki says. "In case it gets lost. So the stone would have returned to him anyway."

Toni read up about that guy and what a feat his permanent death was. She is just happy the problem practically solved itself.

"Get the stupid stone to Asgard, before something else happens," she declares.

Thor agrees and leaves, Toni tries to track whatever escaped. JARVIS describes an AI, vicious and angry. They lose its trace and find it again as laboratories all around the world get cleared out.

When they finally track everything to Sokovia and arrive, the AI is building itself a vibranium body, the twins and lot of SHIELD personnel downed around it, dozens of robots around the main body.

There is just one thing to say against the army of normal steel robots. That seem very fragile to brute force.

"Knut! Ram!"

The frost beast appears from thin air and smashes into the stunned hivemind with the force of a freighter at full speed.

The personnel gets itself out of the way and a big part of the army get downed by ice as Toni takes on the main body.

The fight is short and intense.

The AI goes down, never having claimed a name and SHIELD takes the twins away.

* * *

There is an explosion in Lagos, Nigeria.

It had been an Avenger mission and something had gone wrong, explosively so.

It is a disaster and Toni watches the news coverage from her sofa, curled up on Loki's lap.

No one is really sure what happened, what was supposed to happen, but the world cries out for justice, for accountability and how SHIELD is an American agency that shouldn't be running missions in other countries.

The Accords are getting plastered over the news again, like so often during the last weeks and Toni wonders what is going to change.

She knows she is going to sign, accountability is why she made public that she is Iron Queen.

But she had also been heavily involved during the last few months and these idiots aren't helping.

And she still didn't get the shield back, too.

Well, the official announcement of the Accords together with the ceremonial signing of the first people.

Loki hums a song she remembers from Angielle and the news becomes uninteresting as she closes her eyes to listen.

* * *

There is chaos in Bucharest and it takes tackling Rogers to the ground to get out of him what's going on.

SHIELD had prepared taking the Winter Soldier in, a HYDRA trained assassin Rogers had recognized during his scruffles with him.

Captain America must have triggered a panic attack of some kind and James Barnes runs in response, no matter the collateral damage.

Both are arrested and taken into custody until some HYDRA agents resurface and try to retake 'their asset'.

In the chaos Rogers runs as well, following his newly recaught buddy.

All factions fall off the grid, just to clash again at an airport in Germany. Rogers is joined by Barton, Romanoff, Wilson and Lange.

Coulson hands over files to all of them, calling them agents gone rough. SHIELD either doesn't want or can't cover for them anymore and Toni guesses it's about Lagos.

JARVIS had looked into it and Maximoff hadn't been supposed to be there, but Rogers had decided she needed field practice, it seemed.

Almost all of them get arrested, but Rogers still manages to take a jet. Ironically, it's the one Coulson arrived in, the pilot getting knocked out and removed from it.

The headache is consistent at that point.

Loki and Toni track the jet to Siberia, finding jet another HYDRA base, way less busy than the one in Sokovia but still manned.

Rogers is attacking unrelentingly, shouting for his buddy on top of his lungs.

They watch for a bit as Captain America smashes heads in, until there is a commotion and five people storm up to him, looking utterly cold and murderous.

They get involved, just before the five can kill Rogers.

"Iron Queen and boyfriend," a handler laughs. "Do you really think you can win against five Winter Soldiers?"

There isn't any hesitation as the five take position.

"Knut, nibble."

The look on the HYDRA goons is delicious.

* * *

Rogers is in magical bounds as the official squads arrive, demanding to be set free, shouting for a Bucky. James Barnes is in magical stasis, Loki keeps lookout and Toni throws a frisbee for Knut.

The soldiers start rounding up the downed goons and smacked down Winter Soldiers and the previous smug handler looks like someone broke his mind.

Rogers is taken in and with him the Avengers are history.

Rough agents, a death toll in Bucharest and with Lagos just before that it doesn't look good for him.

She still claims the shield, though, and no one is willing to try to get it out of the frost beast's jaws.

Together with the vibranium she got from the smacked down rough AI, it should be enough to build herself a proper suit with it.

* * *

The world goes back to making sense and Captain America slips from people's minds.

Toni still learns, Loki brings her to Asgard multiple times.

She is in her forties now and finds lines on her face with Loki still young.

He looks at her face, a strange expression in his eyes and a month later proposes to her, presenting her with a golden apple of Idunn.

Pepper, Rhodey and Happy are also getting older, but as much as it hurts, their place is earth. They have their own lives, families and she can't give apples to everyone.

The realisation hurts and makes her cling to Loki harder.

In the end she is going to leave them behind at some point.

* * *

There are two weddings: one on Earth and one on Asgard.

The earthly one comes first. It's grand and flashy and appears in newspapers all over the world.

Loki binds a glamor to her wedding ring, making her appear aging, when she is young again.

She finally gets the shrapnels removed and the reactor with it.

The surgery happens on earth, the aftercare on Asgard.

Loki carries her around until everything is healed up.

When her time on earth nears eighty she leaves, leaving SI and everything physically to Pepper, Rhodey and Happy, taking her suits with her to Asgard.

On Asgard follows another wedding, even grander -something she hadn't thought possible.

She lets Loki spin her around and feels herself like in her first life. The most ironic thing is that he is the royal one this time.

She doesn't care. 

She only cares that they are together.


End file.
